


but oh, what's a court without a jester?

by nikeforova



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Hunk (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Character Study, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Smart Pidge | Katie Holt, it's what he deserves, lance has a brain au, lance is self-aware, lance isn't as stupid idk why y'all want to pretend he is, lance support team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28676379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikeforova/pseuds/nikeforova
Summary: Lance thinks of humor as good for a couple of things: making people not hate his guts (win) and making sure people listen to him at least once in a while (also a win). If you're willing to play the fool, it's surprising how far a little bit of good-natured bumbling idiocy will get you. He listens to what people are saying--far more than Pidge gives him credit for--and steps up to fill a role that's sorely needed. It's not hugely important or anything, but really, there are only so many tense silences at the breakfast table that a normal human being can take; as strong as Voltron is as a team, Lance is acutely aware that it's still composed of individuals at the end of the day. Rule number one is that nobody is immune to stress and insecurity when you're in space.Or: Lance reflects on his role, grows a little bit as a person, and makes plans to bake cookies.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	but oh, what's a court without a jester?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jublis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jublis/gifts).



> Although Lance is definitely arrogant & willing to put a joke in front of anything else at times, I think there's a lot of opportunities where he could've been developed and realistically portrayed as somebody who really contributes to the team in a unique way, which he already does. I don't know. I just think He's Neat. There's this character with a longing for home, who attended a world-class academy as a decent student (at the minimum), has tactical thinking skills, and was offered the opportunity to become a fighter pilot, and we all collectively decided he's shallow, immature, can't communicate, and can't think critically or contribute anything except for his flight skills? And the show decided to portray him that way? Ouch.
> 
> Anyways. I've taken the personal liberty of deciding that Lance would be a communication sciences major. I just think it fits (and I really can't explain why but at the end of the day I believe that anybody like Lance, who makes jokes so often, has a deep desire to connect with people. You don't make that many jokes just for your ego).
> 
> Ju this one's for you even though it's embarrassingly short & spur of the moment just because I know you have Thoughts on Voltron. I'm sorry it's so unpolished skjdghskdhs but!!! I knew if I didn't post it rn I never would so I just said fuck it shitty writing on the timeline!

It's four-thirty median, and Lance is sitting in the accidentally-stolen artifacts storage room that smells slightly like expired Vevrusian cheese. He ditched Keith and Hunk as soon as they got back to the hangar. What's that book called? The one with the terrible, horrible, awful, no-good day? Lance imagines himself on the cover, a rebranding: Lance and the terrible, horrible awful, no-good day. The plot is slightly changed to accommodate a space setting and normal diplomatic activities.

What Lance doesn't know how to write into the rapidly expanding book on today's events is his fight with Pidge.

On the mission back in Cuereceu--what a truly disturbing planet, Lance thinks to himself, all sickly green with weird off-yellow vines that slithered over your feet when you walked--Pidge snapped at him as soon as the doors to the defense room closed. The last inch of space vanished, and before Allura could even start the team reflection, it was plain ugly. "God, Lance," she said, and swiveled, clearly irritated, "do you _ever_ think about what you're going to say next?" Lance remembers the ugly defensive curve of his lip and the _not-now-you-guys_ look on Allura's face and the "I don't know, Pidge, have you ever contributed something beyond computer code to a mission?" that slipped past him before he could stop, drop and think. 

Ah, Sarah did him good in therapy. Stop, drop, and think is engrained in Lance's brain. Actually, contrary to what Pidge thinks, he stops, drops, and thinks in 90% of the situations that require it. He'll have to send Sarah a postcard when he gets back to Earth someday. It'd probably go something like " _Dear Sarah, I promise that all the sessions we did together helped me not go Bonzos (yes, capitalized) in space. You might be wondering why I ghosted you, and the answer is actually these giant lions that I pilot. In space, because I wasn't joking about the space part. Do you have any recommendations for therapists specializing in war trauma?_ "

Yeah, Sarah would take that really well. 

It wasn't a nice thing to say to Pidge. But the crux of the problem is that Lance _does_ think about what he says, and hearing criticism from Pidge that sounds like it's addressed to a six-year-old makes his blood boil. He thinks about what he's going to say just as much as any other member of the team does. It's not that he doesn't try to act appropriately--if anything, it's embarrassing how hard he _has_ to try just to keep up with everybody else in every single field, and even sometimes feel like he's good at something--it's that the outer shell is all he gets credit for. The rash, impulsive Lance.

Fuck. He even set the curve in that Comm B class with that paper on the role of humor and the Hedrig ratio in high-stakes communication scenarios, and here in space (where, admittedly, there are no professors), everybody seems to think of him as the guy who can't do anything but crack jokes and act impulsively. He can think, and if Pidge recognized him as more than comedic relief--which everybody _needs_ , thank you very much--it'd solve at least fifty percent of their conflicts and at least twenty-five percent of Lance's insecurity.

Lance thinks of humor as good for a couple of things: making people not hate his guts (win) and making sure people listen to him at least once in a while (also a win). If you're willing to play the fool, it's surprising how far a little bit of good-natured bumbling idiocy will get you. He listens to what people are saying--far more than Pidge gives him credit for--and steps up to fill a role that's sorely needed. It's not hugely important or anything, but _really_ , there are only so many tense silences at the breakfast table that a normal human being can take; as strong as Voltron is as a team, Lance is acutely aware that it's still composed of individuals at the end of the day. Rule number one of space is that nobody is immune to stress and insecurity.

So the whole court jester act is useful, yes, and it certainly makes things that much easier. Diplomatic relations are so much simpler when there's one person who'll ask the hard, impolite questions that nobody wants to ask, and then the rest of the team can take care of the whole apologize-profusely-for-his-behavior part. _You get the answers you need, and that's why they're all there in the first place, isn't it?_ Lance vaguely remembers learning that jesters were also, at some point in history, also the messenger and truth-teller in times of war. He huffs a laugh: they're certainly in times of war, aren't they? 

Lance hopes desperately that he's doing an okay job. 

Hunk slides into the seat next to him and taps his temple gently. 

"You've got that look on your face. Need to walk and talk?" 

Lance shrugs, hums. It's an implicit sort of _no_. Drops his head to Hunk's shoulder--docking in three, two, one--contact! 

"Just a thinking sort of day, after with--Pidge" he mumbles. His lip catches on the wrinkle in Hunk's shirt; he probably left saliva there. Gross. 

Hunk doesn't mention it. He's good that way. "Don't think too hard. Dinner's in half an hour." Normally, Lance would be put off by the lack of elaboration, but Hunk's tone is gentle. 

Lance tries very hard not to cry. This entails not opening his eyes or mouth, so he just moves his forehead ever so slightly in a comforting thunk. Hunk is still there, he's still real and solid and loves and cares about Lance McClain. _It's like an affirmation that I could say in the mirror every morning,_ thinks Lance. What a hell of a mental workout: _I'm here and Hunk loves me and I'm solid and made out of atoms and so is Hunk;_ 30 reps.

 _Space is cool, Lance, but it does fucks around in your brain._ That's what Sarah would say. Or no, Sarah wouldn't say it like that, but she would definitely tell him something similar. Not in a mean way. She'd probably follow it up with the finale of _let's think of some ways we can cope with it fucking around in our brain_ or _let's look at our options when we don't feel completely centered. Do you think the techniques we came up in group could help us with acceptance?_

Lance doesn't know whether acceptance is really acceptance in space. What is there to accept? That you could die any minute? The human brain is wired to reject death as a concept. Yes, it happens, but it won't happen _to you._ That's what the human brain tells every single being all the time, every single minute of the day.

How ironic that up in space, death is all he can think of after fighting. They're all so close to it, and they're just--them.

Lance thinks about the contract and the nasty clause and realizes that Pidge probably didn't catch it. Pidge probably thought he was being purposefully obtuse, not that he was just trying to check out who had an interest in what at the table. It's not her role to take care of stuff like that, and that's okay--she does so much.

The two of them will figure it out. (It goes like this: Lance will apologize, and Pidge will apologize, and he'll send her his Comm A34 paper detailing his proposal for an algorithm that compensates for sarcasm in real-time translation so she can check it out and know a little bit more about him, and they'll be fine. They always are. He won't even comment on the state of her lab.)

They sit there until Hunk pulls away ever so slightly in preparation to go cook, and Lance lifts his head. Opening his eyes is brutal, and leaving Hunk's warm shoulder is even more difficult. The table is sticky against his elbow as he swings back to where he was.

"I'd like to come cook with you if that's okay," Lance says softly, keeping his eyes on the table. It's purple with yellow flecks, like McDonald's. Some things are universal, and space capitalism is one of them.

Hunk nudges him. "Yeah, totally," he offers in return, and Lance doesn't have to look at him to know he's smiling. Lance stands up and scoots the chair back with an ugly screech--did they put all the shit they accidentally stole from that space mall food court in here? Is that why it's all so ugly?

Whatever. It'll be good to be in the kitchen with Hunk. He'll make dinner, fuck up some cookies, and he'll apologize to Pidge after dinner. Solid plan. Maybe even offer her some of the un-fucked-up cookies that Hunk will make--seriously, how does that guy make such good cookies with fucking space goo?

It's five o'clock, and three suns are going down on 5,847 planets in the 5-gercen radius around them, all of them, and everything is going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> :D find me on twt @lovepo3ms !


End file.
